Where are the 2026 Movie Musicals?!

To kick off 2026 Matt talks about the upcoming movie musicals and discusses the outlook of in-development musical adaptations and the benefit of proshots of musicals.

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Time Codes:
00:00 - Opening Act: 2026 Movie Musicals
03:53 - Proshot Soapbox
13:15 - My Proshot Wishlist
19:03 - Curtain Call

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#musical #movie #2026 #wishlist #downoncemorepod

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up everyone? Welcome to another episode of Down Once More. I'm your host, Matt, and this is the first pod episode of 2026. So if you're new here, welcome. If you've been with us for a while, thanks for coming along for the ride. So I'm doing this on a little bit of a more compressed time schedule. So I haven't been able to do quite as much digging and producing of the podcast as I would like lately. Things have been a little bit nuts. And I decided what better way to kick off 2026? I already talked about everything coming to streaming theaters this month. So check out last week's episode if you haven't yet and you want a little preview of what you can stream this month. Um I'm like, maybe I'll talk about musicals that are coming to theaters, like new releases that we're looking to see in 2026. And so started doing some research on that. And for what has been announced, we are looking at a pretty bleak year of musical movies. Like, really, the only one that we have coming up of any note is the Moana live action remake from Disney. And that's something we'll probably get a few new original songs thrown in there. They gotta chase that best original song Oscar, right? But nothing really jumped out beyond that. Um, that I was seeing. Like we have the the faith-based film I Can Only Imagine Two that's based on like Bart Millard of Mercy Me, His Life, that movie that I didn't think we'd get a sequel for, but hey, we're getting a sequel for that. Um, there's a movie, The Bride, uh, that's coming out that's like a horror drama monster movie, kind of about the bride of Frankenstein. That has a musical tag on it, but I haven't seen anything actually substantiating it as being a musical. Uh, there's gonna be a few kids animated musical things thrown in there too. Okay, just a quick edit as I'm recording this, because apparently Google wants to give different results as I'm editing than when I recorded two days ago. Uh, apparently, one that I forgot is the Michael Jackson biopic Michael. That is slated to release on April 24th, 2026. So you could consider that a musical movie as well. So uh back to the episode now. Hopefully, everything else is at least mostly correct, and the internet didn't lie to me on anything else. But we don't have any like big Pro Shot releases announced. Um, it's anticipated we'll see the digital or streaming release of the Merrilly We Roll Along Pro Shot, something that I had tickets for, had stuff come up. Like I said, there's been some crazy stuff going on in my life lately that I wasn't able to attend. And from that, I saw a lot of positive things, but a lot of kind of negative things about how it was directed and how many cuts there were taken away from other actors besides the main three in the cast, their performances not being portrayed very well on screen, and you not getting a chance to see their work shine through, which is always a bummer to hear. But again, this is just hearsay from the internet. Anyways, we and like last year we had the Six the Musical, the Pro Shot debuted in UK cinemas, but there has been no news of that releasing in the US at all. Uh now Six is on a pretty heavy national touring rotation in the US. I don't know if that could be part of it, if they're wanting to still cash in and get all the money from that, but I don't know. It could just be a rights distribution issue, or they could be trying to wait and cash in. I don't know what's going on with that. I think we need to have, I've talked about at length on here. For most stage musicals, I feel like a pro shot is the best way to get a filmed adaptation of it on stage because you're able to keep it true to the source material, you're being able to see in its natural environment, how it was intended. Um, and you're being able to see all of it. You're being able to see the work the choreographers put into it, which they do in a lot of adaptations too. You get some new choreography that can be fun and you have more to play around with, but you're not having to worry about cut songs or anything like that. And that's been my biggest like pain points with adaptations of like the Mean Girls musical movie adaptation and the Dear Evan Hansen musical adaptation. I feel like those have been some that have suffered the most from cut songs in their kind of transfer from stage to screen. And it really bummed me out because those are ones I both really enjoyed the musical soundtrack and what it was. And so I think we need more pro shots out there. I've talked about it at length. Brad and I talked about it when we reviewed the Next to Normal Pro Shot that made its way on PBS, and then now that we finally have like an uncensored version that we can watch on Broadway HD, and Broadway HD has a ton of Pro Shots, like their app interface with them directly sucks, but you can get it as an add-on to Amazon Prime, so that would be the way to do it. Um, if you ask me, they did run some deals over the end of the year for them directly. They could get some, but they just they don't have a good smart TV app unless they've stepped up their game in the past few months. Um, the mobile app casting to the TV is hit or miss if you try to do that. Same with streaming from like a laptop, but they do have quite a large catalog of pro shots, and so I wouldn't be surprised if that's where we end up seeing like Merrily Weave roll along, because that's what the Titanic one ended up on there. Like Waitress ended up on HBO. So we're getting some of those on the more major streamings, like the Matilda one is a Netflix original one. Um, however, I take it back. The Matilda one is not a pro shot, that's a movie adaptation of it, and a pretty well done one. Um I was thinking there was another pro shot on Netflix Flix, but I'm blanking. But like the come from away one is on Apple TV, and that is fantastic and super well done. Um, you have some on Disney, like you have the newsies one, and you have the movie adaptations of like into the woods and things like that. Uh, I did an episode last year about best like musicals available in streaming. But as I was doing research for if there was anything else coming out in 2026, what I was seeing was a lot of talk of musical adaptations that have been discussed, um, but like no updates in five or six years. And it can be a lot of work to adapt a musical because there's a lot that goes into it in deciding which route to take. Do you let the director do something bold like John M Choo did with Wicked and split it into two parts? So banking on audiences, connecting, and cashing in. Uh, I praised Wicked Part One for how they didn't cut any songs from part one, uh, from the first act, how well they adapted the stage play and like the additions I felt worked really well. And Wicked for Good is now out on digital, so I'll probably give it a rewatch soon. But when I gave my initial thoughts on that, a little less positive. Um, I mean, the second act of Wicked, widely known for being a substantially weaker act, and so I I think the movie adaptation for Wicked actually worked really well versus a Pro Shot. Now I still want to see the performances from the Pro Shot. I think there's a lot of neat staging that they do in the stage musical. Like really, a Pro Shot should just exist for every musical, and I get financially it costs a ton of money to do. You have to worry about the performers' like contracts for royalties and things like that. And I think that's why sometimes um production companies steer clear of it as well, just um the logistics behind it, right? But I started thinking about so these ones that are kind of in development hell, it seems like there's talk about an adaptation of Spam a lot, Book of Mormon, Sunset Boulevard, Spring Awakening, um, 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee, um, a new one of Gypsy, uh, because Gypsy's been a movie already, and just a ton of musicals that there's talks about, and there have been reports of it being worked and uh picked up, the rights picked up, but then no director attached, maybe a producer or two, but things just fall off. And I hope we see more with Wicked Success. I I'm hoping that that proved to people that you can take a stage musical and be faithful to the stage show and bring it to the big screen. Um, I talked about the Merrily We Roll Along. I bought tickets to two performances because as things started shifting, I thought maybe I'd get to see it one of the other days. Almost every performance, every screen now was only showing on one theater and pretty small screens, but almost every seat was sold out. And I think that bodes really well for musicals. And I I hope I haven't looked at actual box office numbers, but I do hope we get to see more pro shots and things brought to the big screen, uh, and just able to make them available and more accessible for audiences. Now, I've talked at length on here where I think you should absolutely support your support live theater, whether it's your local productions, whether it's these tours, whether if you're blessed enough and you're lucky enough to be able to go to Broadway and see those shows. But I think what's hard is there are a lot of barriers to entry for certain things, right? Uh, you're banking on either having to travel a ways to see it on a tour, or just even pricing is expensive to see a live, like a touring production. Your local community theaters usually are pretty reasonable. Um, and you can afford to go to those and support that talent. But I get it's different seeing like that Broadway caliper, the that national tour caliber uh performers. But even Broadway ticket prices have gotten expensive, and you're relying on lotteries for some. And man, I the reports I've seen now. This is again online Broadway, Reddit's musical, Reddit's three theater Reddits about the um, and I actually hate Reddit, so I don't know why I'm just uh it like it Reddit ruins my enjoyment of some things, but um see things about just awful fan and audience uh behavior, and it is rough. I've even seen it at some of the my theater with the national tour people talking, um people just on their phones constantly, things that are distracting uh both to the performers and to the audience around you. So it gets hard to want to spend upwards of like hundred or hundreds of dollars for a ticket to these shows when you have so many other factors at play that can take away from it. Um I don't plan on stopping going to live theater. I like supporting my local theater, I like feeding off the energy of the actors. Nothing can beat seeing live theater and feeling that energy from the performers on stage. Um, and I stand by that. But I'm all for making the theater more accessible to more people out there. And I think being able to have pro shots to see these shows like Hades Town or like the current revival of ragtime. I've seen so many amazing things about it and Joshua Henry's performance. I absolutely love Joshua Henry. I was first introduced to him from Tick Tick Boom, actually, one of my favorite musical movies. And just his performance in Ragtime, this revival has been so powerful and he has such an amazing voice. And I would absolutely love to see a pro-shot of this performance. Now, sometimes we get like the closest we can get without seeing a pro-shot is um a cast recording, which later this month there is a cast recording of this ragtime revival uh that we'll be releasing on streaming platforms. So that's a plus. We are getting a lot of these cast recordings. Even uh Jeremy Jordan and the Floyd Collins revival that was nominated last year. We got a cast recording of that. Most of the uh Tony nominees for best shows got had new cast recordings, right? We had Dead Outlaw, Um Boop, Death Becomes Her, even that production of uh Gypsy, they have cast recordings, so you're being able to capture some of those amazing performers' performances a little bit in that sense, but it's not the same as seeing the emotion on their face. These performers are so amazing, and just being able to see that captured in real time would be so powerful. So I was thinking about what are some musicals that I would like to see a ProShot for. Um, Hades Town is one of them. Now, uh it depending on how things go, I should be seeing Hades Town in a couple weeks. Um, and if I do get to see it, I will be reviewing that on here. Um, I talked about the ragtime one already, a musical that I've heard just such immense praise for, um, but is one that just listening to the cast album, I was having a hard time getting into is Natasha Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812. I've heard great things about that. Uh Ride the Cyclone is one I've heard good things about. Um, that I just some of these, when you listen to the cast album, it's hard to pick up on it. I talked about it a little bit in last week's episode, how I had watched Death Becomes her, the original 92 movie. And so now I feel like I've got a little bit more of the backstory. I know the setting, I know what's going on, even though they changed things for the stage recording. So I feel like I can listen to the cast recording and not be completely lost with it. Um, Be More Chill, a musical I love. That's one that was talked about in I think 2019 was the last time that there was anything mentioned that they were working on a movie adaptation of it. Um, haven't heard anything of it since then, and so that either means it's stuck in production hell or it's kind of fizzled out and died. Um, they even talked about it when Wicked came out. Like that was one that the movie rights had, they've been talking about doing an adaptation for years and years, and it kept shifting from studios, from producers, rights moving around, um, and then finally got made. Finding the right person with the passion to bring it to the screen can be a lot of work. I get that. Um, Anastasia's one that I really enjoy, that cast album. Uh, it is quite a departure from the animated movie that we have. And so I think it'd be really cool to see a pro shot of that. Um, Something Rotten is one. I love a good musical comedy. Um, and this playing on some of the historical figures and Shakespeare and his persona, I think that would be really fun. And you've got the big kind of showstopping number in a musical with that, that would be a lot of fun to see played out and be able to have that access to that all coming together on the stage. Um, once is one that we have a great movie of. I want to see link more music, more of that world. I would like to see a pro shot of that again. That's when we do have a cast recording album most. I can live vicariously a little bit through that. And it's one I know the story because I've seen the original movie, but I don't know. I like seeing more of that. And then Dead Outlaw, that was one of the music new musicals last year that intrigued me the most. Um, and it's hard to find things of that out there. I think it would be cool to see the being able to have access to things like this, or even if they did a live stream like they did of the blanking of the movie that was nominated for a Tony, the play, um, that featured George Clooney. And so they live streamed that final performance. I think it would be neat to do something like that and being able to do a subscription and view some of these live amazing performances on Broadway, uh, some of the last bows. Hell, I would pay for that every chance, like a video on demand live performance. I think that would be really neat just to give people the opportunity to see some of these amazing performers uh live doing their work on stage and broaden the reach of some of those. I saw um Ethan Slater was on uh Jean Marco uh was it Sorensi, I forget his name, the comedian who has the podcast, The Downside Pod. He was on there recently, and he was talking about how in Spongebob the musical uh it ran for a year, and in that, with all the performances sold out, about 500,000 people got to see his performance in total. They had done a pro shot of it and released it on Nickelodeon first, and then the first night, two million people tuned in and watched it. So four times as many people saw it in one instance than saw it in the entire year that it was running on Broadway. And that just increases exponentially as that's on Paramount Plus uh now that you can check it out. Like just having these things in perpetuity, even like he said that with Wicked too, right? Like his role in that as Bach, that that first movie, how many views and how many people saw it in theaters, and then now so many more people uh saw that than would be able to see a stage production, and when he's being uh about to come in, and so I think having more ways to expose people to live theater and some of these just amazing musicals, let's do it. And I think people showing out theaters for these pro shots like Waitress and Titanic and Merrily We Roll Along, those were all ones I saw live in theaters and um not live in theaters, but when they had their big screen debuts and and not merrily we roll along, but Titanic and Waitress, Merrily We Roll Along in Spirit. I was there, I bought tickets, um, and so I did contribute to the box office, but they had good showings and they were pretty full theaters, and so I think that's amazing. And the more that people show out for that and show producers and um companies that this is what we want to see, the more we'll get of it. So that's my little mini episode to kick off January. I want you to either on Instagram, the comments, YouTube in the comments, something, let me know what would be a musical that you would like to see a pro shot done of that you'd be most excited for, that you're like, I need to see this on stage, and what's one you think would be do well with a movie adaptation that you're like bringing these set pieces to life and making it more fantastical, like Wicked did, uh, is the right direction and route that you would like to see it. So leave that in the comments. That's your assignment as a listener this week. And then if you haven't already, subscribe, follow, like, comment, share. And it's a new year, throw us some ideas. DM me on Instagram. What are either drafts you want to see, rankings, top 20, top 10, top five lists, things like that? What would you like to see on the podcast in 2026? So give us your feedback. This is your chance for your voice to be heard for down once more in the new year. So let us know. Thank you all for listening, watching. Don't forget to go down once more.